Catalogue Entry
This painting came to the attention of the catalogue raisonné for the first time in March 2024. It had been in a family’s private collection for three generations—for over a hundred years. Although the painting—a view of Bridgeport’s Inner Harbor—was known from documentation, it had never been reproduced. Thus, it was exciting to be able to see the painting and place it within Twachtman’s oeuvre. It is currently the only extant oil painting from Twachtman’s trip to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the fall of 1888.
Probably not venturing far from the railroad station, Twachtman found his Bridgeport subject matter in the city’s Inner Harbor, focusing on a wooden bridge that connected the city’s east side with its downtown (P.802, WC.800, E.802, E.804) and on a broader view of the harbor, in which old fishing shacks and pilings were integrated with the sturdier forms of the city’s built and industrial forms (WC.801, E.802, E.804, E.805, E.806, E.807). It is likely that Twachtman chose to depict the scene in this painting from firsthand observation in a few different media, testing his eye on the diverse elements before him and the ways they coalesced pictorially.
The painting was one of two Bridgeport oils, both 14 × 18 inches, in the show and sale of the work of Twachtman and Julian Alden Weir, held at the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries in early February 1889. The other painting was The Old Toll House at Bridgeport, which remains unlocated. Both these works were represented in the show’s catalogue by etchings depicting their subjects, E.802 and E.805 (they constituted two of Twachtman’s four etchings in the catalogue.)
The discovery of this painting makes it possible to consider the relationship between the painting and the etching (E.805). While they are close in general in composition, they are very different works. In keeping with a black-and-white medium, the etching naturally demonstrates more concern for value and Twachtman limited the scene to a series of interlocked geometric shapes, in which the dark squares of small windows stand out against lighter planar surfaces. By contrast, the painting reveals subtle observations in the play of light throughout the scene. The light enters from the upper left, illuminating the walls parallel with the picture plane. It grazes the surface of the water, and develops a softer, more reflective glow toward the right distance.
While Twachtman rendered the architectural forms with a controlled precision stemming from his French academic training, he painted the water and sky with sweeping and active brushwork, conveying their interactive properties.There are also differences in the imagery in the painting and the etching. In the former, buildings along the horizon line are larger in scale and appear closer than in the etching. There are bulkheads in the water instead of pilings, and buildings along the harbor at the right are omitted from the etching.
When this painting was featured in 1889 at the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, it received notice from reviewers. Writing for the Critic, one wrote: “‘Bridgeport’ was a view of wharves and old buildings in which [Twachtman’s] customary greys and blues were varied by the dull yellows and reds of the weather-worn houses.” The Art Amateur stated: “Of his marine subjects, ‘Snow Bound’ [probably OP.806] . . . was one of the best. ‘Bridgeport’ wharves and ‘Harbor of Dieppe’ [OP.708] . . . were also good examples of his peculiar talent.”
Some of the buyers of works from the 1889 show were listed in newspaper articles but Bridgeport was not among them. The work appears to have remained in the artist’s hands and then in his estate. It was sold through his estate agent Silas S. Dustin to the prominent businessman and art patron, William T. Evans. It was included in the sale of Evans’s collection in 1913, from which it was purchased by Kraushaar Galleries, New York. It was probably from Kraushaar that the painting was acquired by Samuel Moore and his wife Rebecca Gibbs Moore, in whose family it remained until 2024.